Barcelona, Spain I: Birthday in Park Güell

It's the best birthday present I can give to myself - a flight to somewhere new, somewhere unexplored, somewhere beautiful. Just like last year in Paris, this year I flew to Barcelona a day before my birthday. It made my birthday extra long too with the time difference and everything. I hope I can do this every year but I think it would be quite hard from next year onwards since my holidays don't start so early anymore sharks. So despite the long and dreary 8 hours transit in Doha - it was worth it. My transit was at the new Doha Airport and I think not every airline had moved over yet so it was really empty. I should have done a video like this. His video got so huge that HE MET CELION DION OMG!

I reached Barcelona in the afternoon and took the subway to the station near my hostel. My hostel is really near Park Güell, just 10 minutes walk away up a seriously steep hill. I thought I've seen enough steep roads in New Zealand but I was wrong. And when I thought this was the steepest, Lisboa surprised me yet again. I'm just constantly surprised! haha. Anyway, there are escalators that take you up the steps so have no fear.

I went up to the lookout place near Park Guell and it was flooded with people. I had to squeeze on top just to take a few snapshots of the city. You can see Sagrada Familia standing out from the buildings.

Then I walked to Park Guell. There's an entrance fee of 8 EUR, 7 if you book in advance online. And there's an entrance timing for the tickets for crowd control purposes. You can only enter during the time stated on your ticket but once you're inside, you can stay inside for as long as you want. I was debating whether or not to go in because I read somewhere that entrance is free after closing hours and before opening hours.. but I wasn't too sure if it's true. In the end I decided to just go in and join the crowd. Park Guell is a lot smaller than I thought it would be.. I watched Grandpas over Flowers (꽃보다 할배) right before heading to Spain and they happened to visit the exact same places on my itinerary. Since it was a program, the shooting and the editing made the place looked super amazing.. and big.. It was still impressive but I guess I had too much expectations. I think the downfall of this trip was too much expectations, not that I didn't enjoy myself, I just wasn't too impressed. Like for my last trip to Europe, I didn't do any research and didn't expect anything, I just went and I was blown away. So note to self and everyone else, hold back your expectations, just let the place surprise you!

I really like the curvy seats with the mosaic tiles. The two buildings at the front of Park Guell reminds me of Hansel and Gretel, it looks like the house made of sweets and candies they stumbled upon. I wanted to catch the sunset at the lookout point but it wasn't a good angle or was it because the sky was too cloudy? Anyway headed back to the hostel and finally had some sleep in a proper bed after 20+ hours.

Since I still had jetlag, I was awake at 4+am when I was in Barcelona. So one of these mornings, I decided to go catch the sunrise at Park Guell. The beach was supposedly a good place to watch the sunrise but it was a bit far from my hostel. I was the only crazy one up on that lookout point (the one with the cross) at 5am and it was so peaceful. The sky started to change its colour, welcoming a new day.. I thought I wouldn't be able to catch the sunrise because it was behind the hill and justttt as I was giving up. The sun popped out from behind the hill! :D

After the sunset, I walked to Park Guell to try my luck. What do you know, you really CAN enter the park for free before opening hours! And there was practically nobody around. I had the entire place to myself. So now you know, why pay 7/8EUR to fight with the crowd when you can get this whole place to yourself for FREE.

It was nearly impossible to take a photo with this lizard dragon without anyone photobombing you the first time I was there.. Everybody wanted a photo with it, I honestly don't know why. So when I was there the second time, I took about a thousand photos of it HAH. Nah, just kidding but I did take a few selfies with it. I mean, might as well right? :p